Pycharm: set environment variable for run manage.py Task

Question

I have moved my SECRET_KEY value out of my settings file, and it gets set when I load my virtualenv. I can confirm the value is present from python manage.py shell.

When I run the Django Console, SECRET_KEY is missing, as it should. So in preferences, I go to Console>Django Console and load SECRET_KEY and the appropriate value. I go back into the Django Console, and SECRET_KEY is there.

As expected, I cannot yet run a manage.py Task because it has yet to find the SECRET_KEY. So I go into Run>Edit Configurations to add SECRET_KEY into Django server and Django Tests, and into the project server. Restart Pycharm, confirm keys.

When I run a manage.py Task, such as runserver, I still get KeyError: 'SECRET_KEY'.

Where do I put this key?

Answer 1

Because Pycharm is not launching from a terminal, your environment will not be loaded. In short, any GUI program will not inherit the SHELL variables. See this for reasons (assuming a Mac).

However, there are several basic solutions to this problem. As @user3228589 posted, you can set this up as a variable within PyCharm. This has several pros and cons. I personally don't like this approach because it's not a single source. To fix this, I use a small function at the top of my settings.py file which looks up the variable inside a local .env file. I put all of my "private" stuff in there. I also can reference this in my virtualenv.

Here is what it looks like.

-- settings.py

def get_env_variable(var_name, default=False):     """     Get the environment variable or return exception     :param var_name: Environment Variable to lookup     """     try:         return os.environ[var_name]     except KeyError:         import StringIO         import ConfigParser         env_file = os.environ.get('PROJECT_ENV_FILE', SITE_ROOT + "/.env")         try:             config = StringIO.StringIO()             config.write("[DATA]\n")             config.write(open(env_file).read())             config.seek(0, os.SEEK_SET)             cp = ConfigParser.ConfigParser()             cp.readfp(config)             value = dict(cp.items('DATA'))[var_name.lower()]             if value.startswith('"') and value.endswith('"'):                 value = value[1:-1]             elif value.startswith("'") and value.endswith("'"):                 value = value[1:-1]             os.environ.setdefault(var_name, value)             return value         except (KeyError, IOError):             if default is not False:                 return default             from django.core.exceptions import ImproperlyConfigured             error_msg = "Either set the env variable '{var}' or place it in your " \                         "{env_file} file as '{var} = VALUE'"             raise ImproperlyConfigured(error_msg.format(var=var_name, env_file=env_file))  # Make this unique, and don't share it with anybody. SECRET_KEY = get_env_variable('SECRET_KEY') 

Then the env file looks like this:

#!/bin/sh # # This should normally be placed in the ${SITE_ROOT}/.env # # DEPLOYMENT DO NOT MODIFY THESE.. SECRET_KEY='XXXSECRETKEY' 

And finally your virtualenv/bin/postactivate can source this file. You could go further and export the variables as described here if you'd like, but since settings file directly calls the .env, there isn't really a need.

Answer 2

To set your environment variables in PyCharm do the following:

• Open the 'File' menu
• Click 'Settings'
• Click the '+' sign next to 'Console'
• Click Python Console
• Click the '...' button next to environment variables
• Click the '+' to add environment variables